Ross Clennett from Ingenius Coaching explains agency consultants in a recruiter daily article how they can convince hiring managers to go exclusive with them. From the article, clients need to be explained that:
- Multi-listing potentially devalues the job in the market and potentially devalues the brand of the employer
- Quantity becomes more important than finding the best candidate (e.g. consultants flogging CV’s only to be seen doing something)
- The client does more work and still pays the same fee
- The client does more work, resents it and starts to cut corners
- Exclusivity gives the recruiter time to do a thorough job to find the best candidate
- The reality is that all recruiters give priority to exclusive jobs
- The best candidates are put forward to exclusive jobs
- Other professions don’t do it
Text in brackets is mine.
He finally requests not to ask exclusivity for exclusivity’s sake (i.e. do the best for the client based on the circunstances)
I am sure recruiters can corroborate or not if this reasoning will get their clients to say ‘hmmm… ok! I will work only with you’.
Assumming clients know all this already, I’d say that the reason why clients opt for a portfolio approach is because they do not know which vendor is going to present them the most hireable candidate; this is how we go about making other decisions when outcome uncertainty is a factor, right?; investment in shares may be a good example (you don’t know which company will give you the best/desired returns)
Agency consultants themselves balance their options to source the right person for the client’s assignment. They run their databases, go to all the job boards, put the ad on the paper if they can afford it, etc. Again, they are trying to counter uncertainty by increasing coverage.
You could be rightly arguing that the chosen options are already coming from a pre-screened pool of vendors (e.g. the largest agencies, or the most trafficked websites). Even with this in mind, I put to you that lack of exclusivity stems from the vendor’s lack of offering differentiation, at least in the eyes of the paying customer. In this context, recruiters need to stand out, whether it is by focusing on service breadth, depth, originality, etc.
If this reasoning is sound, then your capacity as a vendor to get your clients to go exclusive with you is determined well before the client contacts you for your services; this perception was set when your customer understood what makes your product unique.
Now you tell me, is this a sissy theoretical argument and there’s no room for differentiation in the recruitment space? Do your customers care if you have a stand out offering? Do you bother in trying to lock in a client, and if yes what’s the clincher?
Have a good weekend
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